It Was 50 Years Ago Today: ‘Mary Poppins: Original Cast Sound Track’
April 28, 1965
Mary Poppins: Original Cast Sound Track#1 on the Billboard Top LPs chart, March 13-19 & April 10 – July 9, 1965
Before rock cemented itself as the primary genre of pop music, the best-selling albums tended to be Broadway scores and movie soundtracks. Billboard only began publishing lists of the top-selling LPs in 1956, and apart from that year (where the best-selling album was Harry Belafonte’s Calypso), soundtracks dominated the top of every year-end chart thereafter. In 1965, the most successful album was the soundtrack to Walt Disney’s smash live-action musical Mary Poppins, which topped the Billboard LP charts for 14 nonconsecutive weeks.
The film Mary Poppins, starring Julie Andrews as the namesake magical nanny, opened in August 1964, but the soundtrack came out nearly two months earlier. By September, it was already Disney’s best-selling “disk product” ever, shipping 100,000 copies; within a year, sales would climb to 2.3 million. The Mary Poppins soundtrack didn’t actually top the album charts until March 1965, where it held the #1 position for a single week before being overtaken by the Goldfinger soundtrack. Buoyed by its success at the Academy Awards and the Grammys, both in early April, Mary Poppins bounced back to the top of the album charts, where it stayed until July. Mary Poppins netted five Oscars, including Best Score and Best Original Song (“Chim Chim Cher-ee”); a week later, the soundtrack picked up two Grammys: Best Original Score and Best Recording for Children.
The songwriters responsible for the music for Mary Poppins were brothers Richard B. and Robert M. Sherman, sons of Tin Pan Alley songwriter Al Sherman. The duo was hired as staff writers at Disney after their song “Tall Paul” became a Top 10 hit for Mouseketeer Annette Funicello in 1959. The Shermans’ first film score for Disney was The Parent Trap in 1961, yielding another Top 10 hit with Hayley Mills’ rendition of “Let’s Get Together.” While the brothers worked consistently over the next few years, including composing for the animated movie The Sword in the Stone, Mary Poppins would prove to be their big break.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLkp_Dx6VdI
P.L. Travers’ original Mary Poppins books took place in the 1930s, contemporaneous with when they were written. Disney moved the setting of the film up to 1910, which allowed the Shermans to model their songs on the music hall songs of the era. “A Spoonful of Sugar” was based on the one-step popular during the Edwardian period, while the energetic dance showcase “Step in Time” was specifically inspired by the music hall standard “Knees Up Mother Brown.” “Sister Suffragette,” the big number for the children’s mother, Mrs. Winifred Banks (Glynis Johns), expanded the Edwardian influence into its lyrics, with Mrs. Banks asserting the case for women’s voting rights.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRFHXMQP-QU
But while the Sherman brothers took inspiration from early 20th century British music, the songs themselves transcend the period setting. Nearly every song from the film has embedded itself in popular culture — the word “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 1984, while “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” has become a familiar idiom. Even lesser-known songs, like the purposely stuffy “Fidelity Fiduciary Bank,” Mary’s anti-lullaby “Stay Awake,” and Mr. Banks’ themes “The Life I Lead” and “A Man Has Dreams,” have catchy melodies and cleverly-constructed lyrics that help flesh out the characters and reinforce the film’s message.
“Chim Chim Cher-ee,” the theme of Mary’s jack-of-all-trades friend Bert (Dick Van Dyke), got the most attention on the film’s release, winning the Oscar for Best Song. (Bert also sings an iteration of it earlier in the film, “Pavement Artist,” when he works as a screever.) “Chim Chim Cher-ee” is a tribute to the “lucky as lucky can be” chimney sweep, but its cheerful lyrics contend with a haunting, mostly minor-key melody, which hints at the sweep’s dangerous profession and lowly place in society. Yet the Shermans also inject a few major chords in the mix to avoid sounding too depressing, reflecting Bert’s optimistic outlook.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_mpaF5-SlU
Even more of a downer is the hymn-like “Feed the Birds (Tuppence a Bag),” Mary’s ode to a beggar woman selling crumbs to passersby as birdfeed. Yet despite sharing little sonically with the rest of Mary Poppins’ score, the song was a particular favorite of Walt Disney, who recognized it as summing up the theme of the film: how a little kindness and attention can grow and multiply, reaping great rewards down the road.
The film ends on a much lighter note with the aptly soaring “Let’s Go Fly a Kite.” Mr. Banks (David Tomlinson), who had so far performed his songs in a clipped, half-speaking style, finally gets to sing in full voice, as he learned to open up and enjoy spending time with its children. (The song was inspired by the Shermans’ own father, who built kites for neighborhood children when they were growing up.) The uplifting nature of “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” helps leaven some of the sadness provoked by Mary’s departure; their beloved nanny may be gone, but they finally have their father.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBkSy3dnIY8
After the success of Mary Poppins, the Sherman brothers would go on to write the music for dozens of films, both for Disney and independently. The duo is credited with writing the most motion-picture scores of any songwriting team in history, including The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and the Winnie-the-Pooh movies. The Shermans also wrote music for various Disney theme park attractions, most famously “It’s a Small World (After All),” as well as the song “You’re Sixteen,” a Top 10 hit for both Johnny Burnette and Ringo Starr.
Mary Poppins, both the film and the soundtrack, was an unqualified success, and continues to be one of Disney’s most beloved classics. Along with My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music, however, it represents the final wave of the live-action musical’s golden age. The Mary Poppins score would be the last of the string of soundtracks/Broadway cast albums that had dominated the year-end album charts since 1957. (The next top-selling album of the year to fall into that category would be Jesus Christ Superstar in 1971, but even it was more of a rock concept album than a proper score.) Nevertheless, Mary Poppins remains a sterling example of its genre, whose songs continue to be a near-universal cultural reference point. Like its eponymous heroine, the Mary Poppins soundtrack remains practically perfect in every way.
It Was 50 Years Ago Today examines a song, album, movie, or book that was #1 on the charts exactly half a century ago.
